


The Continuance of Necessity

by parsnips (trifles)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-01
Updated: 2005-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:30:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trifles/pseuds/parsnips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Better than flying was working this sort of magic: information, betrayal, secrets, lies."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Continuance of Necessity

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 6.1.05 for the May Fantasy Fest at pornish_pixies. Betaread and manfully edited by the wonderful maclaine. Additional warning: very slight breathplay -- blink and you'll miss it.

  
_"Staying out late?"_

_Harry nods as he finishes fastening his boots. Ginny's standing by the kitchenette and poking at the unwashed pots. It's either stand there or sit with Harry on the fold-out couch that's never actually folded-in, because Harry doesn't need or want a flat large enough to take a bed and a chair at the same time. "You'll be here when I come back?" Harry asks._

_Ginny smiles, a little sickly. "Someone has to pass the information on." To Dumbledore, care of his wayward sheep. Ginny turns on the sink and begins washing out Harry's dishes. She doesn't turn to say goodbye._

\--

The night was a damp one, the pea soup sort of evening that leaves its scent on one's clothes and a sheen of oil and smoke on the skin. Harry was in a border section of the city, by the V&amp;A -- a cut between Muggle London and Wizard. Magic happened a little easier on Cromwell Road, with a bleedover that no one liked to talk about. The streetlamps are charm-powered, red nimbuses in the fog, and the rats build elaborate, aerial nests out of strips of Wizard and Muggle newspapers. Harry could hear Hermione's voice saying that the borders between magical and mundane worlds were often more dangerous than nuclear dumping grounds when it came to odd mutations of flora and fauna. This, Hermione declared, was yet another reason for Harry not to go round there, but Harry ignored her voice on this subject just as easily as with all the others.

There were other people who were willing to risk certain chromosomal dangers rather than be bothered by upright and forward-thinking citizens of the shiny-happy pro-Integration Wizarding community. In this area, anti-Ministries hung about in the Grave and Whistle Pub, and they didn't like strangers.

Which was why it was a damn good thing Harry wasn't dressed like a stranger. He adjusted the flask tied at his thigh, twitched a pleat in his skirt, and entered the club.

\--

"Mags!" Gerald, the beefy Squib who worked the door of the Grave and Whistle, patted Harry down for a wand before giving him a swift squidge on the cheek. "How's the face tonight?"

Harry canted his head and shrugged. "Good enough, Gerry," he said, pitching his voice softer than normal. "Though if the real Potter ever comes in here you'll give him a fright, carrying on like that."

Gerry laughed. "Not likely a Wizard like him would. Ministries would faint dead before stepping foot on Cromwell."

"And if they didn't, we'd give them a knock on the head to help," Harry said, angling around Gerry and looking over the crowd. The Grave and Whistle was a small place, but it was imbued with the grime of ages. The counter ran along the right side of the room, rows of bottles stretching the entire length behind it; they, and the bartender, were reflected in the old, marked mirror that made up a good half of the right wall. Red charm lights hung above the crowd in such a way as to make clear that the Grave and Whistle _could_ have provided better lighting if it really wanted to -- it just didn't. A pool table covered in damaged felt graced the back left corner, though, tonight, it was catering to only one man as opposed to the usual motley assortment of billiard-sharps. Mismatched tables and chairs made up the rest of the room; old velvet music hall curtains draped the walls. It was less crowded than usual, but it was early yet. Political dissidents were night owls. "Anyone I should keep my eye on tonight?" Harry asked.

Gerry gave his own quick look over the crowd. "There's a couple of posh bastards sitting at the end of the bar; they came in asking after you in particular. I heard word that there might be a good crowd for you later, women looking for a boy to put through his paces, but they shouldn't be coming through 'till two at the earliest -- you've a while to think on that one."

At the pool table, the one man there bent down, lined up a shot, and smoothly potted three balls. The cue wetly reflected the red charm above the table -- the man looked made of shadow, soaking the light in and giving nothing off. The view was... arresting.

The bouncer caught Harry's gaze, and chuckled. "And then there's what I thought _you_ might like, Mags. He's been here for an hour, now, and I was hoping he wouldn't leave before you came by."

It wasn't what Harry was here for. Then again, he thought wryly, it never was. And an anti-Ministry was an anti-Ministry. Every one of them was a possible source of information about terrorist activities. Still... "I'll see to the men at the bar first," he said to Gerry. "Can't let every dark-haired stranger turn my head when I've a job to do."

"True enough," Gerry said. "And the same goes for me. Off with you, now."

Harry nodded and walked to the closer end of the bar. While he waited for the bartender to fetch his usual, he studied the two men. They were blonds, both of them. One of them turned toward the light, and revealed the face of Lucius Malfoy. Harry felt a moment's hesitation in his gut, but it faded quickly when the other man turned -- Malfoy again. Since the end of the War everyone had a flask of someone famous to carry with them; it was an incognito that rarely failed. A repugnant fad, but a useful one nonetheless. Harry relaxed, took up his drink -- an Amaretto sour, disgustingly sweet but in keeping with his persona -- and considered what Gerry had told him.

'Posh bastards' could be anyone with money who'd been rude to the bruiser. Considering their choice in faces, though, they were probably as anti-Ministry as anyone else in the Grave and Whistle. The Malfoy family had snatched up Draco from Hogwarts and locked their manor away under an Unplottable when Voldemort fell, but occasional missives on Malfoy stationary still appeared in the papers decrying the liberal Ministry of Magic and its recent goal of integrating the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. Harry wondered what these two lookalikes wanted with a border prostitute named Maggie who specialized in "The Boy Who Lived."

One way to find out, he supposed. And in any case, getting closer to them would let Harry get a little closer to the dark pool player. Perks weren't frequent, and he planned to take advantage of this one.

Harry snagged the maraschino cherry from his drink and began making his way to the Malfoys. A quick glance in the mirror showed him that Ginny's skill with costumes was still, well, skillful: his white Oxford had neatly rolled-up cuffs stopping just below his elbows, leaving his forearms and hands long and pale; his nails were painted with a layer of glitter that sparkled in the charm-light; his tie was thin and made of dyed red and gold leather, knotted rather loosely below his open collar; his white neck stretched up into the spiked, sparkling black hair Ginny fashioned him with whenever he was being "Maggie" for the night; his eyes were thickly lined, his lips were hard-on red, and a swipe of glitter decorated each cheekbone. His glasses were the right prescription, but not quite the same frame, and Harry could just see the top of his belted school skirt where his shirt was tucked in. A pair of black knee-high boots completed the outfit, more because he had to wear something on his feet than because he was interested in the effect.

Altogether, Harry thought he didn't do so bad pretending to be a girl Polyjuiced into a boy. From the admiring glances thrown his way every time he paraded out like this, everyone else seemed to agree with him. If only this damned eyeliner wasn't so _mucky_\--

The pool player glanced over as Harry passed, and at the same moment a red charm light floated obligingly over the man's head. Harry felt a frission -- the look the player gave him was darkly admiring -- but the man's face was Severus Snape's. _Not_ Harry's type, then. Bloody damn. Work only, tonight.

Attempting to drive out annoyed thoughts about certain people's choices of incognito, Harry put on a smile and sat beside the left-hand Malfoy. "Hallo," he said, and put his hand on the Malfoy's wrist.

The Malfoy beside him was dressed in a Muggle business suit, while the farther one wore plain dark robes. The suited Malfoy, all patrician nose and sleek hair, looked at Harry with interest. "What have we here?" he murmured and, while close to the proper intonation, Harry had heard the real Lucius upper-class at him more than a few times; this fellow wasn't a real Malfoy. Harry hadn't truly been worried about it, but he still felt the last dregs of fear ease away.

"I heard that you were asking after Harry Potter," Harry said, and turned in his seat to lean back against the bar. He tipped his drink and smiled. "Anything I can do for you?"

The robed Malfoy drank a Guinness and kept his eyes down (_Bodyguard,_ Harry thought), but the suited Malfoy pushed his own brandy and soda away and caught Harry's waist with one large, pale hand. His fingers pressed into Harry's side, drawing him closer. Harry let himself slip off the bar stool, flashing a bit of smooth leg while he was at it, and stepped into the circle of the man's arm.

"You're not a bit of Potter," the Malfoy murmured. His breath was ticklish-soft in Harry's ear. "But you're close enough. Tell me, do you see that dark-dressed man with the face of Severus Snape?"

Interesting. "I do," Harry said. The Snape in question was bent over, making another shot. He didn't seem to notice the attention he was getting.

"I need you to find out if that is the real Severus Snape. If he is, I need you to lead him through the door to the alley beyond, and keep him there until we arrive. Try to make sure he's... occupied. We've questions for him. Do you understand?"

Harry's senses sharpened, and the bar seemed suddenly as bright as midday, outlines clearer, every scent a sense-memory on overtime. This was why Harry did this, why it made a difference. Better than flying was working this sort of magic: information, betrayal, secrets, lies. Heroism was fast and painful and could be practiced by anyone. Harry found he preferred his talent for this more subtle craft.

Harry said, "Right."

\--

The pool player looked up at Harry and frowned. "Yes?"

Closer up, the man looked even less like Snape. The clothes were wrong, too young and loose, with weighted sleeves dropping down a good half-meter from each wrist. The hair was pulled back, a singularly unfortunate choice for anyone even temporarily with Snape's face, and his hands were decorated with thick jeweled rings that would have driven the real Snape mad with bother. Still, a man had to choose that face for a reason, and Severus Snape was a complicated incognito to decipher. Politically, a Snape could go either for or against the Ministry depending on which gossip the wearer believed. Harry knew the real Snape had sided with Dumbledore in his war against the anti-Ministries' attempts to stop the Integration, but he only knew that because Ginny had reluctantly passed the information on. Otherwise Snape appeared much as he did during the previous war: a questionable abstainer who rarely left Hogwarts.

That was probably about as accurate a sum-up of Snape's condition in the current action as the papers' beliefs that Harry was just an ex-student and hero who sat about his flat and did the Witch Weekly crossword until his 'nervous condition' cleared up. Not bloody likely.

He'd stopped having a 'condition' the moment he'd realized what needed to be done.

"Hello, Professor Snape. It's Harry Potter." Harry smiled -- not a full-out grin or anything, but the smaller, more personal, I-like-being-fucked-dirty smile. The man reacted to it like most did, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly and his lips parting a bare millimeter, but he didn't bother wiping the scowl from his face.

The man knocked Harry's hip ungently with his cue stick and said, "You're in my light."

Harry stepped aside with ill-grace and let the Snape go ahead with his shot. The light was not any better with or without Harry's presence; the man drew back his cue stick and slid it through his ringed fingers... only to miscue and send his white ball rolling toward the left corner pocket. Considering how he'd played up to this point, Harry thought this said more about Harry's effect on the man than any number of rude aspersions.

At the sound of Harry's soft, unplanned-for snicker, the man looked up from his irritated quiz of the table and looked at Harry. Harry tensed a little. He'd give him this, whoever was wearing Snape could use those black eyes to good effect. Piercing, focused. _Intent._

The Snape leant his cue stick against the table. "Come here." His voice, Snape's voice, was silk velvet twisted, pronouncing words like the syllables were toffee-sweet. It was how Snape could sound if he hadn't devoted his life to being a bastard. Despite the memories driven to the surface of Harry's mind by the look of the man, it was easy for Harry to sway closer, easy to look beyond the Snape's shoulder to see the Malfoy nodding at him, easy to hitch himself up onto the pool table's ledge just beside the Snape, easy to lean over and breathe in the man's scent (_the part of Harry that wasn't playing the game registered and evaluated the tones, pepper, mandrake, rhododendron, more_), and Harry closed his eyes just to open them again and show off the lashes Ginny had said a thousand women would give up their immortal souls to possess.

The Snape's left hand traced a path up Harry's thigh, his movements entirely economical and deliberate. The Snape paused at the edge of Harry's skirt, fingered the fabric. "What's your name?" he asked. Before Harry could answer, the Snape pressed Harry's knees apart and stepped between the pale thighs revealed there. Perhaps too revealed -- the manager would not be pleased if Gerry had to throw Harry out for indecency, and Gerry would have more than a few words to say himself. But Harry didn't have to think of an excuse for standing again; the Snape simply set the weighted portion of his sleeves upon the table top and let the leftover fabric drape around Harry's pelvis before slipping his hand beneath Harry's skirt to continue his slow, brushing exploration of Harry's skin. "Your real name," the Snape murmured.

"Maggie," Harry said, the word feeling drawn from somewhere low in his throat. He tried to focus -- that casual lie had been harder to speak than it should have been. The Snape was brushing the edge of the garter that held Harry's Polyjuice flask, the light scrape of ragged nails sending electric shocks straight up Harry's body. The man's mouth twitched, nearly a smile. Snape's brows were dark, jutting, and oddly broken, but this man raised one eyebrow (_the left, just like_) and smiled that non-smile again right as he pushed his hand straight up the inside of Harry's thigh and brushed those fingers and rings roughly over the top of Harry's bare erection.

_Fuck._ Harry's hands clenched on the pool table's edge. He wouldn't come, he wouldn't come, it was fucking ridiculous to come from something so simple. He grit his teeth as the stranger's rough fingertips brushed away the accidental come that had formed regardless.

The Snape slid his hand out from Harry's skirt. He brought his hand close and, curiously, sniffed his first two fingers as if studying a potion just come to boil. He raised his eyes to Harry's and those eyes, those black eyes intent, seemed to say--

_A hundred_ thousand _points from Gryffindor._

_Shit._

Snape -- really Snape, _really Snape_, -- abruptly wrapped his hands around Harry's hips and slammed his pelvis painfully against Harry's own. Harry gasped and felt a renewed surge of interest from his cock -- the hot feel of Snape's erection against his own, coupled with the dull bruising from bone hitting bone, Snape's fingers pressing hard against him, all came together in a flash of hot arousal. Harry's legs tightened involuntarily around Snape, crossing at the ankle behind him, and some small semblance of Harry's self-preservation noted that 1) this was _Snape_ he was grinding against, 2) the Malfoys at the bar were looking pleased by this turn of events, and 3) this wasn't an episode that would convince Ron and Hermione that he knew what he was doing.

Snape bent his head and nipped at Harry's neck before drifting up to Harry's ear and biting the earlobe -- hard. "You incompetent, reckless, moronic _child,_" he hissed, anger punctuating every word even as his hands tightened their grip -- as if only the fact that they were in a semi-public area prevented him from immediately turning Harry over and fucking him into the pool table.

Harry thrust helplessly against the onslaught. "Shut it, you hypocrite," he managed through clenched teeth, then whimpered as Snape pinched him. Unfair, unfair that the bastard should know all the little things that-- "How?"

"Polyjuice is detectable in the scent of ejaculate," Snape said, "which you would have damn well known if you'd bothered to check this ridiculous idea with any of your betters." Snape folded an arm around Harry, bringing them in solid contact from cock to cheek, and lightly rocked into him. Unnecessary, surely unnecessary. Christ, Harry was dying of this. "You were speaking to the Malfoys," Snape said. "What did they want of you?"

"You," Harry said breathlessly. "They wanted me to find out if you were the real Snape, and then bring you outside if you were. They were to meet us there."

"Ah," Snape said, and though his voice was succinct, a veneer over the raging anger, Harry could feel the moist beginnings of perspiration forming on Snape's neck, and the hard-on that had never yet gone down press firmly against him. Maybe Harry wasn't the only one being more than a little affected by their show.

Harry darted a look at the men at the bar. They were starting to look annoyed. "We've got to do something soon," he said to Snape, "before they realize something's up. Outside? We can take them together."

Snape paused in his movements, his breath heavy. "You know who I really am, and you wish me to go outside. The very letter of the instructions you received." He began to pull back, slowly, revealing the dark patches of damp cloth that marked where they'd pressed hotly against one another. "I'm rather disinclined to do anything for someone working for Malfoy even by accident."

"But neither one of them's--" Harry stopped. Snape was watching him, inscrutable. "Fucking hell, one of them's the real one, isn't he."

Snape nodded, then canted his head toward the back exit, a bit of pantomime that had Harry feeling oddly flushed. The men at the bar perked up. "You're a fool, Potter," Snape said, "but you're what's available at the moment. If you value your worthless hide you'll do _exactly as I say_."

There was something Harry wanted to say to that, something direct and cutting and probably more than a little puerile, but the words hadn't even formed before Snape dragged Harry off the table, an action that had Harry's skirt hiking up the front of Snape's trousers and the fabric dragging little threads of bright friction fire across Harry's already burning cock.

There weren't really any words left at all.

\--

Snape got them both through the slit in the curtains that lead to the back door and the alley beyond with surprising agility, considering that Harry himself had found it more than a little difficult to get his knees moving in the correct manner. Harry felt as if he was about to wrench out of his skin. It was probably just adrenaline (_and getting caught_) and fear (_and there's a reason he chose a schoolgirl outfit_) and knowing that he really was doing something right, really was part of something bigger, he'd been right, he'd been right (_and thank God he'd been right, because that meant Ron and Hermione were wrong, and there'd be no more 'talks,' no more threats, no 'helping him through his time of trouble' bloody, bollocksy rubbish_).

Christ, Harry'd never felt so fucking high in his life.

The alley was not ominous, or filthy, or an obvious deathtrap. It was just a space between two buildings, lit at both ends -- red charms at one and hazy Muggle streetlamps at the other. The rats and their aerial nests hadn't even made an attempt on it. The alley floor was composed of pavement and a narrow drainage field, still faintly damp from the rain that must have come while Harry was inside the Grave and Whistle. The door behind them sparked briefly and transfigured back into a wall of wet brick. There was no way back into the building now unless they went back round front, which was convenient for the Malfoys, but the fact that there were two ways out of this alley was _not_, and that didn't make sense--

Snape dropped his hands from Harry the moment the door sealed and quickly surveyed the scene. He nodded to himself and, ignoring Harry completely, twisted a catch on the first ring of his left hand to reveal a small cache of faintly glowing powder. Snape poured the powder in a straight line across one end of the alley. The second ring's contents crossed the far wall of the alley; the third's paralleled the first line. The fourth wall, where the door lay hidden, remained unpowdered.

"Why--"

"Be quiet," Snape said. He closed his eyes and began chanting under his breath. A moment later the powder's luminescence turned up a notch and then faded to nothing. It was a clever way of getting around the no-wand rule of the Grave and Whistle -- alchemical magic. Snape opened his eyes and breathed deeply. "Good," he said, apparently to himself, and then turned to Harry. His expression darkened into annoyance. "Against the wall, Potter."

"What?"

Muggle scientists said that going faster than lightspeed was impossible, but Harry couldn't argue against it now. Snape moved as if he was made of electric shock, a buzzing sting at each point of contact: a loose fist pressing Harry's waist, a palm against his shoulder, forehead to forehead that echoed the dull crack that had resounded when the back of Harry's head hit the wall. "We do not teach by the Socratic method, Potter, nor do we expect our students to communicate in such a manner as well."

He slammed a hand against Harry's mouth and said, "Whimper."

The wall to the left of them, but still inside the square Snape had defined, was transfiguring into a door. How long had he and Snape been outside? A minute at most. Snape was staring at him. The door was fully formed. Harry whimpered. Snape took his hand away. He opened a fourth ring -- the last but two -- and swallowed its contents. He opened the fifth ring. The door opened.

The open door blocked Snape and Harry from view, but evidently Harry's sound effects were sufficient proof that "Maggie" was doing what had been asked of her. The suited Malfoy came out quickly. The robed Malfoy was on his heels. Neither had wands -- either they'd known the rules or Gerry'd confiscated them right off -- but the robed Malfoy held a sharp knife. The door to the Grave and Whistle closed a bare second before Snape blew the contents of the fifth ring into the air. A great cloud of smoke-colored dust swirled about, spreading until it hit the edges of Snape's square. Snape cried a word and the dust whipped into a frenzy of movement before diving toward the Malfoys, Snape -- and Harry.

The dust flooded his mouth and his nose and stung his eyes and seemed to crawl into his ears and then there were two worlds. The first world was made of silhouettes, Snape bending over the two Malfoys, the Malfoys changing into not-Malfoys, the not-Malfoys empty-eyed and talking, Snape hitting each man with the butt of the not-Malfoy's knife.

In the second world, Snape came to Harry, and waited, and stared, and opened his mouth, and then Hermione was standing before him, bright and solid, and Ron stood beside her.

"Don't do this," Hermione said, an echo of memory. It was a year after the end of school; a year after the fall of Voldemort. He'd met the two in Hogsmeade. They'd wanted to talk to him about Harry's theory about the new war, about where Harry thought he belonged. "It's simply ridiculous," Hermione said. "If there was some extra threat that needed your attention, don't you think Dumbledore would've mentioned it by now?"

And Harry'd said _That's just the point, it's a new test, Dumbledore always tests._

"Not like this, mate," Ron said, "and you can't expect us to help you without knowing that this is _exactly_ what Dumbledore wants."

_It is what he wants. Dumbledore always needs me. I know he does._

Hermione said, "Nobody but you thinks there's any merit in this plan, Harry, and I don't like how secretive you're being about some of it. Frankly, it sounds more like you're self-destructing in a rather spectacular manner

_and you can fuck off, Hermione, you and Ron both--_

and you're in more trouble than you can possibly imagine, Potter," Snape said from behind him, this wasn't memory here, this was fantasy, Snape fucking Harry languidly, this was fear, this was Snape scraping ragged nails across Harry's stomach. "Who do you think you are?" Snape said. "The Boy Who Lived has lived and done his duty, Potter. The Dark Lord is dead. You aren't doing Dumbledore's work anymore." The thrusts were harder, punishing. Snape put an arm around Harry's throat and pulled him up, back, cutting off the air with each pounding drive. "Face the truth, Potter," he said. The world was fading dark as Snape's voice rasped, silk velvet rags, "You're a slut because you want to be."

Harry came. And then the two worlds became one.

He was crumpled against the wall, his shirt hiked up behind him and his back stinging with friction burn. He held the end of his tie in his hand -- he'd been choking himself in his insensible state. He scraped at his eyes behind his glasses and came away with a fingertip of eye makeup and the remnants of the fifth ring's dust.

A shape blocked the streetlight. "Are you going to sit there," Snape's voice floated down from overhead, "or are you coming?"

Harry looked up and tried to focus. Snape appeared none the worse for wear, but across the alley lay a pudgy man (_not Malfoy_) in a business suit and a thinner man (_neither one a Malfoy_) wearing an oversized robe. Both of them appeared unconscious still -- there were thick, pulpy looking wounds to each of their temples.

Harry apparently wasn't recovering as quickly as he ought, because Snape reached down and hooked a hand under Harry's elbow to pull him to his feet. Snape muttered a word and the protective square flared and died again, and Snape stepped out of it with Harry in tow.

At the end of the alley, the Wizard side of Cromwell Road seemed wide and empty. The rats rustled above, and the fog was growing again. Before exiting the alley, though, Snape turned Harry so that they faced one another.

Snape looked... tired. More like the stranger Harry'd seen behind Snape's face than the professor Harry knew him to be. "That powder was a derivative of Veritaserum," Snape said slowly. "Do you understand? I know all the secrets of those who the powder touched. It didn't touch me because I had taken the antidote. I know everything, Potter. Everything."

Harry opened his mouth, tried to speak. His mouth was dry, and the cracked feeling of his throat was enough to spark a series of spasmed coughs. Snape took one hand away (_but the other remained, warm and warm_) and opened the last ring. "This ring has magical space built into it, so that I may choose what comes from it, and in what amounts," Snape said. "I... Drink this." He pressed the ring to a corner of Harry's mouth and tilted it until a cool, mint liquid touched Harry's tongue. It was a potion, one Harry didn't recognize, and it soothed the cough's burn.

Snape took the ring away after a moment. His expression was inscrutable. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

He took his hand away and poured a small pool of the mint potion onto his palm as Harry frowned. "You're Professor Severus Snape," Harry said at last. "But--"

Snape was warm, and warmer still when he slowly closed the distance between them. His hands reached for Harry's skirt. The cold, damp air touched Harry briefly, and then Snape's hand was on his cock, hot, wet. "And I know," he said, "that you are Harry Potter."

And then Severus Snape was jerking Harry off.

The movements were quick, almost emotionless, but the rhythm was perfect. Stroke and squeeze and Harry could almost see the picture the two of them made, the shadows of two figures and the slow pitch of their movements. The liquid from Snape's ring coated Harry's shaft with a thin, slick layer of curious sensation -- almost numbing, but also close, close, as if a mouth was taking him in, deeper, sucking harder and harder and Christ the feeling of it, it could be any mouth, any hand on him, but it was Snape, Harry was speaking and he couldn't be sure of what, but for all that the man was a bastard maybe that was part of why this was so good, so suddenly necessary. Snape's stubble, light but noticeable, was rubbing Harry's face steadily and painfully and deliciously as Snape rocked with Harry and he was feeling it too, Harry would bet a hundred Galleons, a hundred thousand points from Gryffindor that Snape was getting off on this just as much as Harry was. Snape was everywhere, harsh words in the ear telling him "We are not a necessity because of what we are willing to do" and a hard fist on Harry and Harry came with a panting cry no client had ever elicited from him.

Snape held Harry upright and waited until Harry's breath slowed and evened out. Harry finally managed to say, "I don't understand."

He looked down at Harry, a long, drawn-out gaze that seemed neither angry nor annoyed nor any of the hundred thousand other expressions the professor could wield, and had in the past. But it wasn't the gaze of a stranger, either.

Snape said, "You don't have to understand." A stone appeared at the base of a charm light. "Dumbledore sent me to the Grave and Whistle because I'm willing to go, and I know what I'm doing. I wasn't expecting to find you. I suspect that was the point." Snape took a fold of Harry's shirt between his fingers, brought them both to the charm light, and bent to retrieve the rock. A tug from the navel out, and they were at the edge of Hogwarts property.

"Your place isn't to understand, Potter," Snape said, "but it is to follow. My place as well. You should have waited for Dumbledore to contact you before you tried to make yourself a tool for him; we are not the sort who succeed at leading ourselves." And then he walked up to the castle without waiting for Harry to follow.

\--

_In a small flat in Muggle London, Harry Apparates into the bathtub. Boots off on the bathroom floor, clothes off too, glasses flung atop the clothing, and he turns the water on and washes the glitter away._

_Ginny knocks on the door. "All right, Harry?"_

_Ginny had finally told Dumbledore the particulars of Harry's nightlife. Dumbledore had sent Snape to intercept him, though neither had been aware of it. When they'd reached the castle, and the office, and the endless score of innocent lemon sherberts, Dumbledore had said, "You've always had a place, my boy. Are you willing to do what must be done?"_

_Harry could still feel Snape's hand on his skin._

_"All right, Ginny," Harry says from his bath. "You can go home now."_

  
END


End file.
